1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor operational circuit, and in particular, relates to an operational circuit which is capable of conducting operations with respect to analog and many valued data at high speed and with a high degree of accuracy.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, in concert with the development in computer technology, the progress in the field of data processing technology has been truly remarkable. However, when attempts were made to realize the flexible type of data processing conducted by human beings, it was almost impossible to obtain the results of such calculations in real time using present computers. The reasons advanced for this are that the data which human beings process in the course of their daily lives are analog data, so that there is firstly an enormous amount of such data, and moreover, these data are inexact and vague. It is thus a problem in present data processing systems that the extremely redundant analog data are all converted into digital values, and rigorous digital operations are conducted one by one. An example of this is image processing. For example, if one screen is incorporated into a 500.times.500 two dimensional array, then the total number of pixels is Two Hundred Fifty Thousand (250,000), and when the strength of the three colors red, green, and blue for each pixel is expressed in terms of eight bits, then the amount of data in one stationary image reaches Seven Hundred Fifty Thousand (750,000) bits. In moving images, the amount of image data increases with time. Given these conditions, let us consider data processing in which the center of gravity of an image in a screen is determined. Even in this processing, which might at first seem to be simple, the analog vectors which comprise the screen information are used, and it is necessary to conduct, one by one, sum operations and subtractions with respect to a large amount of analog data. If an attempt is made to realize such processing by means of a computer, it is first necessary to convert all the analog vectors into digital vectors, and after this, to conduct 4-rules operations in sequence, and even if a present day supercomputer is used, it is impossible to manipulate the large amount of (1) and (0) data and conduct picture recognition and understanding in real time.
On the other hand, attempts have been made to realize data processing approximating that of human beings by accepting real world data, which are analog values, in an unchanged form and conducting calculations and processing on these analog values, in order to overcome the problems described above. This approach represents the method best suited to real time processing; however, it has not yet been realized, and there exists presently no semiconductor operational circuit capable of conducting such operations in real time and with high accuracy.
The present invention was created in light of the above circumstances; it has as an object thereof to provide a semiconductor operational circuit which is capable of conducting calculations with respect to analog vectors at high speed and with high accuracy.